November 2008 in science

November 30, 2008 (Wednesday)

Palaeontologists discover Odontochelys semitestacea, a marine turtle that lived 220 million years ago, suggesting that turtles evolved in the sea. (Nature)
A key ageing mechanism has been found with protein SIRT1. Usually it suppresses genes from being activated, but it also fixes DNA; in doing so SIRT1 abandons its suppression role. (NewScientist)
In the first U.S. cyber-bullying court case, defendant Lori Drew is cleared of felony charges and given three misdemeanor counts. The case could set significant precedents on how a website's "terms of service" are applied to criminal cases. (Reuters)
Spam is increasing after the 80% drop in volume when McColo was shut down on November 12. (CNet)
A hormone family called NAPEs produced by the small intestine have been identified that suppress appetite, which could lead to new obesity treatments. (Reuters)

The first cyborg leaf is created by attaching photosynthetic molecules to thin sheets of gold. (NewScientist)

The WaterMill, a device that creates clean drinking water from humidity, is showcased by Wired (magazine). (Guardian)
Truly random numbers are generated 10 times faster than existing methods using laser feedback. (NewScientist)

The first logic gate is built that can process data carried by spin waves, a key component of spintronics. (NewScientist)

Personalised cancer treatment improves with a test of 49 genes that indicate which patients will respond to common treatments. (NewScientist)
President-elect Barack Obama announces a policy working group on technology for his upcoming administration. (CNet)
The DNA of the extinct woolly mammoth is sequenced from mummified hair. (Reuters)
Google publishes 2 million photos from Life's archives, with plans to make all 10 million available free of charge. (AP)

NASA successfully tests a disruption-tolerant networking to extend the Internet into outer space. (NASA)
The USB 3.0 specification is finalized, which promises to be 10 times faster than USB 2.0. (MaximumPC)
Nvidia announces a personal supercomputer design based on using multiple GPU's. (eWeek)

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory create a large number of positrons by shooting a laser on a small sample of gold. This will assist in understanding black holes and gamma ray bursts. (LLNL)
Google Voice Search becomes available on the iPhone. (CNet)
A new lab-on-a-chip can analyze 35 proteins in a drop of blood within 10 minutes. Reducing the cost and time it takes to conduct standard blood testing by at least an order of magnitude. (TechReview)

The first divorce directly attributed to cheating as an avatar occurs in Second Life, a virtual world. (eFluxMedia)

Land based telescopes and Hubble capture the first images of exoplanets in the visual spectrum. Until now, researchers have used gravity changes to identify extrasolar planets. For the first time in history, pictures of extra-solar planets in HR 8799 have been released. (CNN) (Reuters)

The Martin jetpack is invented. (PopSci)
Chandrayaan-1 reaches its operational (100 km) orbit around the moon. (ISRO)
McColo a web host responsible for as much as 75% of the world's spam is taken offline by its ISPs. (eWeek)

The Phoenix Mars mission ends as the probe stops communicating with Earth. (BBC)

See: Wikipedia:Current science and technology sources.